What makes aircraft fly

Tom Murray, provided by Published 4:12 am PDT, Saturday, March 23, 2019 Rob Staines Business Insider spoke to British Airways flight attendant Rob Staines about how men can best prepare themselves for long haul flights. Air travel for extended periods of time can be a nightmare for your body, thanks to the dry environment caused by low cabin pressure. While there's a wealth of information out there for female travellers, guys are left pretty much in the dark when it comes to skincare and diet advice. Staines picked out bad practices and solutions across four themes, from drinking onboard to clothing. There are plenty of articles and blog posts out there about what to bring on a long flight if you're a woman — from shawls, to makeup, to hair ties. As a result, guys are left pretty much in the dark when it comes lengthy flights, which can be a nightmare for your body if you're not prepared. Business Insider spoke to British Airways flight attendant Rob Staines to … [Read more...] about The 4 biggest mistakes men make when flying long haul, according to a flight attendant

What happens when you cross a blimp with a plane, and give it a few helicopter features? A lighter-than-air plimp-hybrid airship is born, according to a Seattle-based company looking for investors. For $4 million plus overages (paid out over four years), investors can buy their own Model J — a 169-foot-long (51 meters) aircraft that can carry up to 10 people (eight passengers and two pilots), or about 2,000 lbs. (907 kilograms) through the air, thanks to its helium-filled blimp-like body, gas-electric hybrid engines and rotational wings with propellers. But don't call it a plimp outright. That word is trademarked and meant to be used as an adjective, said James Egan, a Seattle-based attorney who is the CEO of Egan Airships, maker of the plimp-hybrid aircraft. [In Images: Vertical-Flight Military Planes Take Off] The idea came to Egan in childhood, as he was playing with helium balloons and balsa-wood gliders. He noticed that these wooden gliders had a slower descent when he … [Read more...] about While You Weren’t Looking, Engineers Combined a Plane and a Blimp to Make a Plimp

By Christopher Mims The Wall Street Journal Fri., Nov. 16, 2018 If it feels like new technologies go from flights of fancy to billion-dollar businesses faster than ever, that’s because they do. Consider that Uber, founded in 2009, started allowing drivers to sign up with their own cars in 2013. Five short years later, the company operates in more than 70 countries and competes with dozens of copycats. It’s considering going public in 2019 at a potential valuation of $120 billion (U.S.), which would make it the biggest IPO in U.S. history by far. When novel software can go from hackathon to app store overnight, and even complex hardware can hit manufacturing lines in months, the determining factor of success is us—as consumers, workers, even regulators. If the pitch works and we bite, a technology can quickly transform our social norms. At the WSJ Tech D. Live conference in Laguna Beach, Calif., this week, what became apparent across dozens of … [Read more...] about What’s the next big thing in tech? It’s up to us

It may be a year or more before the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) changes its rules enough for Amazon or other hopefuls to deliver products by drones. But the five-year FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018, signed into law Oct. 5, confirmed controversial rules the FAA considers critical to its ability to regulate drone traffic and confirmed funding and plans for drone-specific additions that would create an air-traffic control system that can track traditional aircraft and a rapidly growing population of commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The near-term goal is to provide safe, low-altitude operations for both drones and manned aircraft. The longer-term goal is to accommodate what is expected to be enormous growth in the use of commercial drones, in an efficient way, according to briefing materials from NASA. The bill covers all aspects of the FAA’s operations, but the biggest change is the integration of civilian unmanned aircraft into the national airspace system … [Read more...] about FAA Traffic Management Anticipates Flying Cars

Christopher Woody, provided by Published 11:56 am PDT, Tuesday, October 9, 2018 Air Force/Senior Airman Valentina Viglianco The Air Force is opening up the selection process for pilots to fly the legendary U-2 spy plane. The six-year experience minimum is being discarded, and trainee pilots will be able to pick the U-2 as they would any other plane. The program is only experimental right now, however, so the U-2 pilot corps will remain a select group. The six years of experience and hundreds of hours of flight time needed to become a pilot of the US Air Force's oldest spy plane are no more, and now trainee pilots will be eligible to take the controls of the venerable Dragon Lady. The new U-2 First Assignment Companion Trainer, or FACT, program will allow Air Force student pilots to jump directly into the U-2 pipeline and join the 9th Reconnaissance Wing. "Our focus is modernizing and sustaining the U-2 well into the future to meet the needs of our nation at the speed … [Read more...] about The Air Force is changing the way it recruits U-2 pilots — here’s what it’s like to fly the US’s oldest working spy plane